BCRR – Making 5″ gauge tracks

Hello 2″-scale logging friends,

last Wednesday, a good friend came to the Bear Creek Railroad Yard for some track work. In January 2015, I got a bundle of 12 rails to make at least 14 new snap track pieces for my railroad. But I never got the point to start with this, until the big indoor event in Karlsruhe in January 2016 is coming closer and Jonas finally has offered his help, but was limited in time. So we got a start this week.

First was to cut helper ties, as I call them, pieces of 3x15mm flat bar, each 200mm long. They will be welded as ties to the foot of the rails to make solid track pieces. Once done, I screw wooden ties to the helper ties to make my typical track pieces. For the new tracks, we needed 104 of these steel ties.

To weld the tracks, I made jigs from already existing track pieces of the same pattern. I placed them upside down to a board and screwed stop blocks along the rail head on both sides. I also marked the place of the ties. Now I can simple place two pre-bend rails to the jig and start welding the ties.

And here we come to the part I don’t like the most. Welding just isn’t my thing. The only thing I can reproduce very well is point welding welding rods to the work piece… Anyway – with each welded tie, I get better…

First one done, but due to starting night-time, I’ve to finish the remaining 13 pieces another day. At least, we’ve pre-made all parts so the rest is more or less “easy-going”. Many thanks to Jonas for his help.

Cheers, Gerd